Any Given Tuesday
by XoX-queen-bee-XoX
Summary: It's not about breaking the mould," he told her. "It's about breaking the law." Rachel learned the hard way that you don't always want what's best for you, or what's easiest to get, but that couldn't stop her from wanting it, badly.
1. Scented Kisses

**Hi everyone, **

**just a few quick notes and then I promise not to leave anymore throughout the story. So firstly this will be Will and Rachel, but hopefully classily done. I realise it's not necessarily a popular pairing so if you dont like it then please just don't read it.**

**This is the first of I'd say about five to six chapters and this one is much shorter and contains pretty much the only singing in the whole story. Also it's M for a reason. I plan on updating every five or six days, maybe a little faster depending on how quickly I get things done.**

**It takes place I think during/after 'Preggers' but doesn't follow the story line of any of the episodes after that, or even that particular episode's story line, since this relationship is quite OOC and so won't fit in well with the other things going on in the show.**

**Well that's all I think. hopefully you enjoy**

* * *

_Uncertainty is killing me_

_You're certainly fast asleep_

_Maybe I've gone way too deep_

_Maybe I'm just far too weak_

* * *

Tuesday. A day like any other, except that it wasn't. The events of that Tuesday were inevitably going to lead to spiralling out of control of Rachel Berry's young life. In less than two weeks, she would barely be recognisable on the inside. Rachel was about to force maturity onto herself at an age far younger than most would like and entirely unintentionally at that.

And yet, with her seated on the auditorium stage, in a position no different to her usual one, with her smile exactly the same as her constant stage smile and with her fingers flying lightly over piano keys, one would never have guessed at the events to befall her in the coming days.

Taking a deep breath, she began to sing.

_I never loved nobody fully_

Rachel glanced at the boy sitting in the front row of seats and smiled at him. Finn smiled back, ruffling his hair. She found him an intriguing person to watch, if for no reason other than that he so awkwardly confident.

_Always one foot on the ground_

She had a bit of a crush on him. It was obvious to everyone, she knew it was. It wouldn't have been a problem, except for the fact that he had a girlfriend who had a personal vendetta against Rachel for no apparent reason. She didn't understand the appeal at all, personally. What could he possibly see in someone so conceited and callous?

_And by protecting my heart truly_

_I got lost in the sounds_

At that point Finn stood up and made his way up the steps and onto the stage. Rachel's attention slipped entirely from the song and although her mouth continued to sing and her fingers continued to play, her heart was no longer in the music.

Mr Schuester had been with them, running over lines mostly with Finn. Honestly, Rachel didn't really need much help with her singing and she was well aware of it. She liked to be there for Finn though, in case she could be of assistance in anyway. You never knew when having Rachel Berry around might come in handy.

_I hear in my mind all of this music_

He had been with them, until a stray hand of Finn's while running over choreography for their duet had sent Mr Schue's coffee cup flying and splattering all down his shirt. After some profanities which he had thankfully muffled, presumably for her sake, he had headed for the bathroom with a dismissive wave of his hand in Finn's direction, assuring him that he was absolutely fine.

Now the two of them were left alone and for want of anything better to do, Rachel had decided to sing.

_Suppose I never ever met you_

Finn was now up on the stage with her, coming over to sit down at the piano with her and watch her play. She felt strange with him so near to her. Her heart pounded unnaturally and she found it difficult to focus on the words she was singing.

_Suppose we never fell in love_

He looked at her again and smiled his gawky smile. Rachel smiled back. He smelled extremely good and although she couldn't speak from experience, she had to guess this wasn't completely normal for a football player.

The only other males she had been around who smelled noticeably pleasant were Kurt, who smelled of the expensive Gucci scent which she herself had tried on while shopping and Mr Schuester, who presumably had to smell good since he was married. It seemed like a natural precursor of marriage would be passable personal hygiene.

_Suppose I never ever let you..._

"I love listening to you sing," Finn murmured, over the sound of the notes drifting through the cool, air conditioned air.

_Kiss me so sweet and so soft_

"It's beautiful."

Rachel's fingers faltered on the keys and she stopped her crooning to stare up at him with her full attention.

"Thank you."

She was upset with herself that that was genuinely the best she could come up with. Rachel considered herself an adequately intelligent person and 'thank you' didn't seem like the height of all bright replies. She put it down to the funny flippy feeling she had in her stomach, throwing her brain off a little bit. Sitting this close to Finn, she decided was not something that aided her mental capacity.

She wanted to kiss him. The way his eyes kept darting between her eyes and her lips, she could guess he wanted to do the same thing. She hoped she wasn't wrong, because she took the moment of silence to lean right up as high as she could get and press her lips against his.

The kiss was similar to their first one, not having lost the uncertain, innocent edge to it which Rachel found slightly frustrating. While she enjoyed kissing Finn, there was something about the lack of passion behind it which she found disheartening. In books the activity had definitely seemed far more exciting and invigorating. While it was pleasant now, that was simply all it was, which wasn't quite enough for her.

When he didn't push her away, Rachel attempted to deepen the kiss. Being somewhat inexperienced in the kissing department, she wasn't entirely sure how to go about doing this and was working off a bit of a hit and miss strategy, which seemed like a bad idea, but would have to do.

She opened her mouth and Finn responded by sliding his tongue inside it which she took to be a good sign. It felt odd and honestly not entirely enjoyable, but after a few seconds he seemed to adjust and the sensation became less objectionable. After a little longer she began to greatly enjoy kissing him.

The places his hands touched sent small chills down her spine and she could feel butterflies flapping around in her stomach, making her dizzy.

She was unsure just how long they sat on the piano stool kissing, but what she did know is that by the time he pulled away she was out of breath and somehow without her fully noticing, the top two buttons on her blouse had come undone. Her lips felt swollen and tender and she could see some of her cherry lip gloss smeared on his mouth.

"Oh no," he breathed, shutting his eyes and massaging his forehead as though something was deeply troubling him.

"What?" She couldn't get the giddy smile off her face, no matter how much she wanted to appear cool and collected. It couldn't seem very cool to act like a preteen receiving their first kiss.

He stood up. "I shouldn't have done that. Look, forget that happened, alright? That was a really bad idea."

Suddenly it wasn't so hard to let the smile slide off her face.

"Seriously?" She asked a little numbly. "Again? You're doing this again?"

"I have a girlfriend," he answered apologetically, before turning and walking off through the door.

Rachel put a hand to her mouth to hold in the sob as his back faded into the wings. She had thought for a few seconds there that maybe that had actually meant something to him. Of course she knew he had a girlfriend, and of course she knew that this should probably make him off limits, but if it did, then why did he encourage her? Why did he let her keep putting herself out there only to shut her down?

"Damn it." Tears welled up in her eyes and slid down her face, as she turned around and rested her head on the piano, watching as the drops of water fell blurrily on the keys below her. She didn't know how much more of this she could take.

To her left, someone cleared their throat uncomfortably. She snapped her head upwards, following the noise to find the source of it standing watching her uncertainly. He looked like he didn't know whether to run away or comfort her.

She blinked a few times and tried to get her breathing back under control, since it was still in crying mode and was coming out in shaky gasps.

"Oh, Mr Schuester," she said, trying to act normally, as though he couldn't see that she just been balling her eyes out. He had been watching her for goodness sake. "I didn't see you there."

He frowned and walked over to her. "What happened?"

She shook her head and dashed away the trails of water running down her face angrily. "Nothing. I'm fine. I have allergies."

He sat down next to her and looked at her, without saying a word. He simply sat, looking concerned and understanding and without him needing to say anything, Rachel's tenuous hold on her emotions broke once again.

She flung her arms around his neck and buried her face in his neck. His arms wrapped gently around her back, a hand patting her shoulder comfortingly.

"I- I – I, he said, a-and I and it wasn't, I di-didn't think he would..." Whatever she had been trying to get out – and even she wasn't entirely sure what it was – was cut off by a loud chorus of sobs erupting from her chest.

"It's alright Rach. Deep breaths, it's going to be fine."

"No it's not," she bit out miserably, in between gasps and wails.

"Yes, it is."

Eventually, after a long series of disjointed words and plaintive cries, Rachel managed to regain some semblance of restraint over herself and her weeping faded to small sniffles. Will released her from the hug that he had found slightly uncomfortable, but which he doubted she had noticed in the slightest.

"You want to tell me what happened?"

Rachel bit her lip and used the sleeve of her shirt to try and mop up her tears.

"I got your shoulder all wet," she announced, looking at his shirt, most probably in an attempt to distract herself. "Sorry."

He waved the apology off. "It'll dry. Besides, it already had coffee on it anyway."

Of course it did. Stupid Finn; he had a habit of ruining things apparently. Shirts, moments, hearts, anything he could get his hands on. She should have known better than to kiss him in the first place after what he had done last time.

"I have some tissues in my bag," she told him, sniffing once again and drawing in a deep, shaky breath. She reached down and picked some out of the perfectly ordered school bag beside her chair, handing them to her teacher.

He took them and smiled gratefully, taking a few and mopping up the small puddle on his shoulder and neck. The coffee stain, Rachel noticed, ran in a small V from his neck to half way down his shirt. He had opened a few extra buttons in what Rachel assumed was an attempt to check his skin, which she saw was slightly red. Maybe the coffee had actually burnt him.

She studied the patch of visible skin more closely. It didn't look like a burn; it could very well just be from scrubbing to get the coffee off of himself. He was surprisingly tanned compared to how she had thought he would be, which was a pleasant surprise. Not that she spent large amounts of time considering this.

It was just that any man she had ever seen without his shirt on, excluding models, seemed to have that tan line that came from wearing T Shirts too often during the summer. From what she could gauge of Will's chest, he had no such line. Then again, it could just be the redness masquerading as a tan.

He cleared his throat quietly once again and Rachel realised much to her horror that he had caught her looking and he was bound to take it the wrong way. She hadn't meant to try and check him out, she was only looking for purely medical reasons. But he wasn't to know that and she was hardly about to launch into a full blown explanation. Let him think what he wanted, she decided. Besides, he had a nice chest and if he walked around with buttons undone on his shirt, she was perfectly at liberty to stare at it. Wasn't she..?

In case she wasn't, which she was starting to think may have actually been the case, she looked back at his face.

"Sorry for crying on you," she said softly, accepting the box of tissues back and dropping them absent-mindedly on the floor by her bag. She wondered if her eyes were puffy. And if they were puffy would he notice or did he not care about something so trivial on someone who was just a mere student? Why would it bother him if her eyes were puffy.

But she would notice if his eyes were different. He did have beautiful eyes after all and she meant that in the most platonic way that could be meant. A hazel-green shade that she would have loved to have herself.

"Not a problem. You're not the first." He didn't elaborate and Rachel didn't expect him to, but it did seem a very strange closing sentence.

"Your, um..." he gestured to his sternum area and for a second Rachel raised her eyebrows wondering what exactly he was trying to point out, until she looked down and saw that her buttons were still open from when Finn had undone them.

"Oh. Right." She reached down and did them up slowly, her fingers still a little wobbly from the emotional overload she was suffering from.

She looked up to see his eyes flicking awkwardly between her fingers and her face. When her eyes lifted to his, they stopped flicking and stayed trained on her face. Clearly he felt uncomfortable watching his student doing her clothes up and she couldn't really blame him. Surprisingly though, she didn't feel uncomfortable at all. In fact the whole thing was oddly thrilling. It intrigued her to watch his eyes attempt to stay on her face when there were probably other places he would rather have been looking. How had he noticed they were undone in the first place, she wondered and the idea made her stomach churn strangely and not entirely unpleasantly either.

She smiled at him, finishing up with her buttons and watching as his lips curved into an answering grin.

"I saw Finn leaving," he said then, ruining the formerly nice moment between them. Rachel waited unhappily for the unwanted questions, but surprisingly they didn't come. "Rachel I know it's none of my business, but-"

"No, you're right," Rachel cut him off before he had the opportunity to elaborate on what he was going to say. She respected Mr. Schuester as a person, but his love advice was not something she wanted to hear. "Not to be rude, but it's really not and if you don't mind, I'd rather return to practising now."

"Right." He seemed a little shocked at the abrupt ending to the conversation but thankfully he didn't push it any further than she wanted him to. "Sure. What do you want to practise?"

"Taking chances," she said, standing up and walking over to pick up the microphone Finn had previously been using. She felt in the mood for a song that could be properly belted out and this one was the first that popped into her head.

"Great, when you're ready."

In general Rachel found that singing while emotional produced the best and least professional results. The emotion and intensity in the song were always far more present when she felt ready to punch a hole in the wall, however the notes had a tendency to miss occasionally. Will seemed to notice this.

"Come here for a second Rachel." His fingers stilled on the keys and Rachel's voice died with them. She walked over to where he was sitting and sat down beside him.

"No, stand up."

She frowned but climbed back to her feet.

"It's almost perfect, except it feels like you're getting so into the song you're kind of losing your concentration."

She nodded even though she didn't totally agree with him. It wasn't concentration she was losing, it was pitch; but then he was probably just being polite.

"Sometimes when you're really feeling a song I see you lean into the notes," he told her, beckoning with a finger for her to come closer. She did so, catching a scent of his familiar smell; a mixture of cologne and soapyness which made her want to smile. Cleanliness was extremely underrated in her opinion. Those unwashed miscreants at school could learn a thing or two from this man.

"And?"

"It's not a bad things, but it cuts off the air supply to your abdomen slightly, so rather than coming from here-" Will waved a hand over her stomach, "-the sound comes more from here." Another gesture, this time around her chest. Her heart froze a little as his hands passed mere inches from her breasts. She doubted he had even noticed; she felt a little disgusted with herself for thinking of it in such a sexual way when it was purely educational.

"Which makes it harder to control the note," he continued, seemingly unaware of her momentary heart failure. "If you put a hand on your stomach you can feel when it happens because the vibrations change."

"Where, here?" Rachel put a hand, purposely a little too high on her abdomen. She wasn't entirely sure what she was doing or what she planned to achieve from this but she did it anyway, because her current emotional instability had inspired her to be impulsive.

"Lower."

She moved her hand so it was too low."

"More like here." He reached out and took her hand, shifting it upwards until it rested on her navel, pressing it firmly into her tensed stomach muscles. "You'll feel it when you talk even."

His hand released hers and she found she was disappointed. His touch had made her hand feel peculiarly warm and tingly. It was nice and she wanted it back.

His fingers began to tap away at keys again, the melody of the song floating back into Rachel's head. "Try it."

_And maybe this is going too fast_

It seemed strange to Rachel that the words to the song just happened to fit with her state of mind right then. It seemed her subconscious knew her better than she knew herself. Except that her subconscious was herself, so maybe it didn't work that way.

_And maybe it's not meant to last_

_But what do you say to taking chances?_

_What do you say to jumping off the edge?_

She could feel the vibrations in her abdomen, just like he had said she would be able to, but it wasn't an overly interesting experience. Not compared to the nice hand tingles of before anyway.

"This feels funny," she said, although she wasn't referring entirely to the sensations running from her stomach to her fingers and up her arm. "Feel it."

Without giving herself time to think through her actions, for fear that she would realise how stupid they were and back out, she reached out and grabbed Mr Schuester's hand, taking it gently in hers and pressing it to the lower half of her stomach. The touch sent chills up her spine and she held it there, despite the clearly shocked look on his face.

The music had stopped but Rachel continued.

_Never knowing if there's solid ground below_

_Or a hand to hold or hell to pay_

_..._What do you say?

Her voice had trailed off enough by the end of the chorus that the words were not sang so much as asked. She wondered if she was genuinely asking the question of her Spanish teacher. What would he say? No most probably. And yet his hand still hadn't moved off her stomach.

Their eyes met once again and held this time. His hand was large and warm and oddly gentle against her shirt. She was struck by a sudden impulse to remove it and feel his bare skin against hers but this was one impulse she didn't follow through on.

Ever so slowly, she tightened her grip on his hand, sliding it downwards. She didn't know what on earth she thought she was doing and from the look on his face, Will Schuester was in the same boat, but still he didn't pull away. He didn't look quite scared, although that was probably the closest word she could find to describe his expression. Whatever it was it was not a happy one. It wasn't angry either though, which was what gave Rachel the assurance to continue sliding his hand downwards.

When his strong, deft fingers slid over the gap between her shirt and the waistband of her skirt, he seemed to snap out of the daze he was in, pulling her out with him. He snatched his hand back abruptly and stood up.

"I should go," he said uncertainly. "I have papers to grade and other things I have to... do."

He said the words and yet he didn't move, almost as though he was waiting for her consent before he left her standing alone in the auditorium once again.

"Right. Go ahead. Sorry."

When Rachel saw him around after that everything had returned completely to normal and although this wasn't her first choice of action, it was far from the worst. She assumed that things could go back to how they were and both of them would pretend nothing had ever happened. It was something she could live with.

But then he gave Tina the West Side Story solo and Rachel knew, just knew, that things were not back to normal at all.


	2. How to catch a man

**Quick thanks for all the reviews/alerts/favourites and I know I promised, but i feel I should also mention, this fic assumes Rachel is in Will's Spanish class.**

**I know that she most probably isn't, but I need a change of scenery :P**

* * *

_I don't recognize your doubt_

_Please say something darling, shout at me_

_How unfair to shut me out_

_We lie belly up in a pool of us_

* * *

There was a knock on the door. Will looked up from the horribly written Spanish paper he was marking to see Rachel standing outside, hands clasped behind her back, staring expectantly at him.

For a few moments he considered sending her away, for no reason other than that whatever it was that Rachel Berry had to say, it was most probably something he didn't want to or have the time to deal with right now. It was bad enough that she was invading his thoughts, it would have been nice if she could have stayed out of his office.

Despite himself, Will forced a nonchalant smile as though he didn't know what she was there for and waved her in.

"Rachel, hey," he looked back down at the papers and shuffled them into a more orderly pile to avoid looking at her. There was an awkward tension in the air that was becoming customary between the two of them. Will didn't like it at all.

He cleared his throat. "What can I help you with?"

"Hello Mr. Schuester." When he looked up, he saw the obligatory smile and the forced air about it, which made him even more uncomfortable. "I wanted to speak with you about Glee."

Obviously. Will resisted the urge to roll his eyes. What else could the girl possibly want to talk about? He mentally reprimanded himself. There was no need to be mean.

"Mm," he murmured, acting disinterested, "what's up?"

She looked at him and because he had no more papers to order, he was forced to look back. Being under such intense scrutiny from her made him even more uncomfortable and he swallowed loudly, his mouth suddenly dry.

"I think you know."

"Do I?" He shrugged in an extremely noncommittal fashion and began to twirl his red pen between his fingers.

"Mr Schue, you know I respect you as a teacher, but you aren't really serious about giving Tina my solo."

He looked back up at her, trying his very best not to scowl; it seemed too childish.

"It's only fair."

"No it's not, and you know it's not." Apparently, Rachel didn't find scowling quite as childish as Will did. That or she simply didn't care.

"No, actually, I don't know that and to be honest Rachel, I'm getting a little bit sick of your attitude." It worried him how easily he was becoming agitated. That last comment was not only unnecessary but also unprofessional. He should have shrugged it off and explained to her calmly why Tina deserved the part; there were one million reasons after all. "You're not the only talented person in the group."

"Mr. Schuester, that was _my_ part. You know she can't do it! Why are you doing this to me?"

As if she didn't already know. He could see in her eyes that she knew and he knew it too, but it was hardly something that could be said out loud.

"I'm not doing it _to_ you." He looked away again, fiddling with his pen and leaving small scratch marks on the desk.

"Yes, you are." Her voice was softer this time; understanding with a hint of pity. He didn't quite comprehend why she would have any reason to pity him, but then she was pretty much the queen of condescension. "This is about what happened on Tuesday and I don't think that's fair at all."

His breath caught awkwardly in his throat, and once again he swallowed too loudly. She wasn't meant to bring it up, it was meant to stay peculiar and uncertain between them and ruin things slowly, but it was meant to stay silent as well.

"Nothing happened on Tuesday," he muttered, his eyebrows pulling together. Rachel shook her head, that unbearably hopeful smile fleeting across her lips.

"I was there Mr. Schue. I know something happened and I don't regret that, but I regret you punishing me for it."

"You should regret it," he answered, his voice so low he doubted Rachel could even hear him. She shook her head once again.

"Well I don't. And I don't think you do either."

"That's a big assumption to make Rachel." As soon as the words were out he regretted them, because he knew he should have denied it. That was the only way this was going to go away.

"Is it?" Although he wasn't looking, Will heard Rachel stand, her chair scraping along the ground and her ridiculously sensible shoes pattering lightly over the ground towards his chair.

'What are you doing?' was the first thing that came into his head, but his mouth was dry once again and he couldn't speak.

He chose not to follow her with his eyes, because the whole thing was only serving to scare him immensely. Rachel couldn't have been any older than sixteen. Not only was he married, but this was illegal and wrong and completely disgusting. And yet he didn't stop her.

He put it down to pity. That must have been what it was. He didn't want to embarrass Rachel; she was so emotional, he couldn't be sure what she would do if he told her he wasn't interested. If he told her that Tuesday had been a complete accident; that it was nothing.

It was true, and yet it had certainly seemed like something at the time. Something rather strange and uncomfortable but definitely something all the same. It wasn't his fault though, Will clarified in his mind. He hadn't meant to walk in on her crying and if he hadn't then none of the awkward events that had followed would have happened. He couldn't be blamed for anything.

Will felt her hands lightly touch his shoulders, resting there uncertainly and yet determinedly. He drew in his breath sharply and shut his eyes, unable, or maybe unwilling to move. He had never known it was possible to feel something so wrong and still want it.

Her grip tightened ever so slightly and her fingers trailed forwards, touching his collarbone and moving lower, then back up and down his arms. She was leaning down; he could tell because suddenly he could feel her breath on his neck and it sent shivers down his spine.

It was impossibly strange how something so simple could become so confusing. This shouldn't mean anything, and yet it did, because she was her and he was him. The meaning was wrong though; wrong and inappropriate and she was stretching the line that he had drawn, too far.

"Stop it Rachel." His tone was surprisingly harsh as he shrugged his shoulders, shaking her hands off him. She took a few steps away from him, letting her arms drop back to her sides and moving so she was back in his line of sight. Will's eyes were shut, an almost pained expression on his face which made Rachel's heart clench tightly.

"Why?"

"You know why." He never opened his eyes to look at her, which meant he never saw the way her eyebrows were pulling together or her teeth were biting roughly in to her bottom lip to hold back tears.

So this was how it went? Why was she even surprised? This was always how it went. He didn't care about her and he probably never had. The only thing that was worth a damn when it came to her was her voice. If she couldn't sing, Rachel doubted Will would even know her name.

"Why don't you want me?" She asked almost angrily, staring at him even though he wasn't looking back. "Why does _no one _want me?"

"Rachel-"

"No!" She stamped her foot unabashedly, not bothered that she looked like a belligerent child. "I'm sick of it. Why am I always the back up? With Glee, with Finn and now with you. Why is there always someone more important than me?"

"Because it's not just about you." Will's frustration seemed to be increasing with every word that left her mouth. "I'm married. Do you understand that? I've made a commitment to someone, I'm not just going to up and break it for you. You're just a girl Rachel, a kid. You wouldn't understand."

The words were harsh, probably too harsh and Will knew it. It wasn't that he wanted to hurt her, despite the fact that he knew he had, but he needed to make her stop. Every time Rachel tried this stupid fantasy of hers on, his resolve was weakening and she just wasn't worth it to follow through on. Even if she was beautiful and talented and uninhibited, that wasn't the point. Will just wasn't that kind of guy.

"Right," Rachel bit her lip once more, and this time the tears rolled out of her eyes without restraint. "Of course I wouldn't. Sorry for interrupting your work Mr. Schuester."

Will looked down at the ground and kept his mouth firmly closed. He wanted to reach over the desk and take her hand and tell her she was wrong. Rachel wasn't second to him. Not in his head anyway; God, lately she was almost all he thought about. There was nothing even the slightest bit secondary about her. In reality though, she could never be anything more than his student. The relationship had no chance of ever progressing anywhere further than his mind; there were some lines that he just couldn't cross.

* * *

Rachel didn't miss the raised eyebrows when she came into the room. Her eyes were still red and no amount of tissues and makeup touch ups could fix them, but she chose to ignore them as best she could. You couldn't get anywhere in life if you let other people's looks and comments bother you.

She almost wanted to snort at herself for thinking it. If that was true then why had she been crying in the first place? Silly hypocritical girl.

Finn was one of the few people who didn't seem to notice her entrance; he was preoccupied with Quinn, discussing something which was seemingly important but Rachel was guessing probably wasn't. People like Quinn Fabray didn't have real problems, they had pretend popular problems to do with their hair and clothes and parties they didn't want to go to.

It wasn't fair that people like her got all the attention when Rachel had true talent and no one even gave her a second look. Not Finn, not any of the boys and definitely not Mr. Schuester. She had thought that he might be different: some of the things he said to her had made her think that he might even...

But he didn't and she shouldn't be surprised. He was just like all the rest of them really; happy to use her to help himself but unwilling to give anything in return. Besides that he was her teacher and having any feelings for him beyond that was utterly ludicrous.

And yet she did and she couldn't quite bring herself to dislike that. It was the kind of thing hundreds of girls thought about; teacher student relationships. Rachel had assumed they were intriguing for no reason than that they were off limits but she was beginning to see a new side to it. Older men were more mature, more intelligent, they had more depth and they lacked the sometimes frustrating dimwittedness of almost all boys Rachel's own age. Not only that, but some of them, one in particular, were extremely good looking.

But in the end it didn't matter because Mr. Schuester had no interest in her. Or none that he was willing to admit to anyway. She knew there was something there, but she didn't expect him to be willing to own up to it. Most men were cowards when it came to their feelings and she doubted Will Schuester was any different. No wonder so many women were turning lesbian these days.

"You look like someone tipped a bucket of water over your head," Kurt informed her and Rachel blinked, snapping out of her trance to realise that she had been surrounded by Tina, Artie, Kurt and Mercedes, although the latter looked like she had better things to do with her time than worry about why Rachel's makeup was smeared down her face.

"That's completely illogical," Rachel answered testily. "If someone had tipped water over my head then don't you think my hair would be wet?"

She didn't need to look to know the others were exchanging glances, but she looked anyway because she could.

"Alright. What are you, the figurative language police?" Kurt answered equally moody, flicking his hair out his eyes and rolling them in her direction.

"It's hardly figurative."

After that the others trickled away one by one and Rachel realised she had unnecessarily alienated herself from her peers once again. She sat down near the piano alone and attempt to discreetly spy on Finn. He looked just as stressed as he had when she came in and she wondered what the problem could be, although there was no chance she would press the issue. Talking to Finn about Quinn would be equivalent of Ms Pillsbury talking to Mr Schuester about his wife; depressing pointless and unnecessary rubbing of salt in a wound.

At several points throughout her not so subtle eavesdropping – which was failing miserably since she couldn't hear a word they were saying – Rachel caught Mercedes glancing at her however she once again chose to ignore it. At this point in time she had no interest in engaging in a conversation with anyone. All she wanted was for rehearsal to be over so she could go home and cry in the privacy of her own room.

With this thought Mr. Schuester walked into the room, carrying a folder which he set down on the top of the piano and clapped his hands brusquely. Despite having spent the last few hours thinking about him, Rachel now found herself unable to even glance in his direction. She stared instead, at the floor, which had suddenly become extremely interesting.

"Okay guys, let's get into our places and run over _Don't Stop Believing_ and then we'll have another look at _Tonight_."

"Oh wonderful." Rachel hoped no one heard her muttering, although she suspected one of the football boys had from the strange look he gave her, which she again staunchly ignored.

"Come on, let's get a move on," Will said, waving his hands agitatedly when no one moved. It might have just been her, but it definitely seemed to Rachel that he was specifically not looking in her direction. She wondered if he felt as uncomfortable as she did right then.

She climbed reluctantly to her feet and stalked over to her spot in the lines scowling at the ground. Next to her Finn glanced down and raised his eyebrows but didn't say anything. Rachel was only surprised he'd managed to tear his eyes away from Quinn for more than two seconds to even notice she was standing near him.

She took the moment to glance at Mr. Schuester who was unquestionably purposely not looking at her. Her scowl deepened almost imperceptibly. It didn't exactly seem fair to Rachel that he got to ignore her, but then he had practically been doing it ever since he gave the solo to Tina. Wasn't persecuting her the same as ignoring her obvious talent?

She didn't realise the music had started until someone crashed into the back of her and she looked around to see everyone was moving but her. She blinked and shook her head. The music stopped and whoever had walked into her grunted unappreciatively.

"Sorry," she muttered, looking at Mr. Schuester who was unsurprisingly still not looking back at her.

"Not a problem, take it from the top." He waved a hand and the music started once again from the beginning. Rachel forced herself to actually listen to it this time instead of paying attention to the man standing in front of her.

Just as she thought this, he glanced away from whoever he had been watching previously and looked straight at her. Rachel faltered in her steps as his gaze met hers and the words that had been about to come out her mouth froze. He looked away abruptly and once again the music cut.

She received more than a few dirty looks this time, most of them coming from the direction of an overly emotional blonde cheerleader.

"Sorry," Rachel repeated, uncomfortably, staring at her feet.

"What the hell RuPaul?" Santana Lopez snapped, ruining anything that may have surfaced between her and their teacher in that moment. "I thought you'd been dancing since you were like, in the womb or something but you can't even do these steps?"

"This isn't even dancing, this is walking. Can't you walk Man Hands?" Quinn smirked at her and Rachel felt a blush rising to her cheeks despite herself. It was bad enough that she was called names, but the fact that it was happening in front of Finn and Mr Schuester made it one thousand times worse. She almost wanted to cry again. She could feel the tears welling up right now.

"Alright," Mr Schuester cut them off looking down a little awkwardly, although to anyone else Rachel suspected it would have simply come across as disinterest. "Try to keep up Rachel."

Rachel could feel everyone's eyes on her again. She felt a hand on her elbow.

"Are you okay?' Finn leant down from his towering height to ask quietly, glancing around as though he might be able to find what was troubling her in the room. Of course, he could, but that was neither here nor there.

"I'm _fine_," she answered shaking his hand off her arm. He probably thought it was something to do with him, but then he wouldn't be wrong. She suspected at least some of her uncoordinated walking stemmed from anger and anxiety over Finn ignoring her. He would however be wrong in assuming it was only him she was worried about but she was hardly about to correct him.

He leant closer so no one else would have been able to hear him. "Did I do something?"

Ah, so she had been right. Rachel flicked her hair over shoulder coldly and scowled. "This may surprise you, Finn, but my life doesn't actually revolve around you."

She turned away from him, shrugging off his bewildered look. He'd probably ponder over it for the next twenty seconds then put it down to PMS and forget about the whole thing completely.

Rachel spent the rest of the rehearsal hitting wrong notes and generally embarrassing herself every time their Spanish teacher looked at her. By the end of the meeting she was about ready to crawl under a rock and die. It didn't come as a big surprise when on the way out, that dense football player she had never particularly liked, Puck, suggested she do exactly that.

She was tempted to ask Mr Schuester if she could talk to him, if nothing more than to clear up what had happened earlier but he had probably predicted this because by the time she had regained her thoughts enough to speak to him he had already disappeared out the door.

Rachel sighed and collected up her things, placing them into her schoolbag and preparing to leave.

"Rachel!" Mercedes called after her as she headed for the door. She paused and turned to look at the other girl. "Wait up. We're going the same way."

"We are?" While that was logical, owing to the fact that they were all going the same way, Rachel wasn't genuinely surprised at this. She was however surprised that Mercedes had pointed it out and also that she wanted to walk with her.

There was no specific ill will and they got on just fine, however there wasn't exactly a need to be in each other's presence felt by either of them. Besides that, today Rachel had really just wanted to be alone to think things over. But it seemed rude to leave now, so instead she waited patiently in the door until Mercedes was ready to go.

"So what's up with you?" her semi-friend asked as they drifted down the half towards the front doors. "I've never seen you mess up so many times in rehearsal."

She paused.

"Actually, I've never seen you mess up _ever_."

"Yes, well," Rachel inspected her nails. "I'm having an off day."

If she had really waited for this girl and given up her alone time just to be bombarded with rude comments, she might have to slap something.

"Okay, seriously though, what's going on?" Mercedes stopped in the hall, crossing her arms over her chest and looking at Rachel expectantly. For a few seconds Rachel toyed with the idea of not stopping.. she could keep walking right out the door and escape this inevitably awkward conversation but she just didn't quite have it in her to be so rude.

"Just..." How to word it? "Boy troubles."

Mercedes nodded as though she knew it all along, which she probably did. Her looks at Mr Schue hadn't exactly been subtle; someone was bound to have noticed. She only hoped that she wouldn't go telling everyone, in case rumours got out of hand and he lost his job. That really wouldn't be fair.

"It's Finn right?"

Rachel raised her eyebrows, but tried to cover it quickly.

"Yes, of course. Finn. Who else would it be?" She laughed nonchalantly although it probably came out as something more along the lines of hysterical. Maybe taking it a bit too far, but Mercedes didn't seem bothered by it.

"I mean personally, I don't see the appeal with big hunk of chicken over there, but most of you lot seem to be going crazy over him."

Rachel paused. "Did you just call him a 'hunk of chicken'?"

Mercedes ignored her. "What did he do?"

"He didn't do anything." It was true. Too true, that was the problem. "He doesn't follow through on things really. Or maybe he just doesn't like me, I don't know. To him I'm just the other woman. I'll always be the other woman. Maybe not even that. It's all the same to him as long as I don't quit the club."

Rachel wondered if she was still talking about Finn. From the sound of her last sentence, she would say not.

"He has a girlfriend, you know."

"Yes, thank you, I did know that." Rachel rolled her eyes. Try wife.

"But she's a bit of a bitch."

"I knew that too."

"You know what you need?" Mercedes asked as they reached the doors. "You need to do something to make him notice you. And I don't mean like messing up the steps to our dance, I mean like, good notice. Dye your hair or something."

Rachel scowled. "That wouldn't make him notice me. Nothing would make him notice me. He's only interested in his girlfriend and winning regionals."

"No..." Mercedes didn't sound entirely sure of herself. Most probably, Rachel thought, because she was wrong.

They had caught up to Santana Lopez and the other cheerleader, Brittany, who Rachel also didn't particularly like. They were standing outside the front doors talking, probably waiting for someone. Right as they exited the door, Rachel caught a snatch of their conversation.

"No, he bought them for me," Santana was saying, grinning girlishly. "He says they make me look sexy."

"How often does he see you in them?" Brittany asked sounding shocked. "Have you forgotten the motto?"

Rachel didn't have the slightest idea what they might have been talking about, however the mention of 'the motto' brought to mind some rather heinous memories of a certain celibacy club meeting which she had attended. Maybe that was what they were talking about.

"Oh please Brit. I'm not saying I let him touch them, I just flash them a little bit occasionally. If that's not teasing I don't know what is."

Brittany giggled. "That's cruel."

Santana shrugged. "I know. But if there's one definite way to keep a guys interest it's sexy underwear."

At this point the two girls seemed to notice the new arrivals.

"What are you looking at Yentl?" she snapped, glaring at the two new girls.

"Nothing," Rachel glared back at her, embarrassed at having been caught eavesdropping on their clearly private conversation.

"Good, keep walking then." She waved a hand dramatically and despite wanting to reply, Rachel was too consumed with her new thoughts to bother arguing.

"Sorry I couldn't be more help," Mercedes looked genuinely dejected as they walked away from the school. "I guess I'm not really the master of attracting boys, you know?"

"No, it's alright," Rachel was barely paying attention to her. "You've done just fine."

_

* * *

_

**..Reviews are welcome..**


	3. Love Games

_But I get carried away, with every day_

_And every fantasy_

_The cheaper the thrill, the deeper I fill_

_My head with blasphemy_

* * *

The Victoria Secret department of the mall, with a large sign on the window, proclaiming '_ten years of sexy_' was a place entirely unfamiliar to Rachel Berry. Most of her underwear consisted of basic monotone fabrics used purely for hygiene reasons, with the occasional cute pattern of spots or fruits thrown in there.

For this reason, the frilly, lacy, furry and satin scraps of fabric which could be found in the store she was currently in were also a foreign concept for Rachel, who felt somewhat lost looking around the large room and making absolutely no head way. For quite a long time she stood in the entrance to the extremely pink shop, staring inside at the tall, thin attractive people shopping inside and considered backing out of her plan. It wasn't too late at all; all she had to do was turn around and walk back in the other direction.

She considered this option for a long time, until a woman accidentally bumped into her on her way in, sending Rachel half stumbling into the store. Confronted with a whole new array of silky underwear right in front of her nose, she decided that there was simply no way she wanted to go through with this. There was no way any Spanish teacher in the world was worth this kind of effort.

Before she could turn and make a run for it, however, she was pounced on by a shop assistant, with a bottle blonde bob and hot pink lipstick.

"What can I help you with, honey?" The girl was southern, only adding to her cute and yet somehow sexy demeanour. It made Rachel a little depressed. In spite of this, now that she had been actively acknowledged, Rachel found her pride reflex kicking in, making her stand up to her full height – which sadly wasn't anywhere near as tall as most of the other people in the store – and smile her professional smile. Then for want of anything better to say, she resorted to the obvious of fall back of 'what would Santana say'?

It upset her to have to stoop so low as to rely on such a shallow, small minded person to take her cues from and yet in an environment such as this it seemed like the sole option.

"I need underwear," Rachel informed the assistant, who gave her a smile despite the fact that she was obviously thinking very unsmile-worthy thoughts about the dim observation. "For my... boyfriend. I mean not for my boyfriend; for me. But I want him to see me in it."

This seemed to spark her interest. "Oh, wonderful."

She took Rachel's elbow and began to lead her over to a stand nearer the back which was covered in red and black satin and which made her gulp audibly.

"Special occasion? Anniversary?"

Rachel nodded. "Something like that. I need something that will get him to notice me, you know? I feel like he doesn't even look at me anymore."

The assistant looked at her and put a hand to her heart. "Oh honey, we have all been there. At first they're all loved up and then suddenly they just don't seem to appreciate anything you try and do for them anymore. Don't worry though, we'll have him staring at you again in no time."

She winked conspiratorially at the younger girl and pulled out something Rachel could only compare to a corset, except that it was made of considerably less fabric, all of which was completely see through. Once again, she had no response other than to gulp.

"Maybe something a little more..." 'Normal' was the word Rachel wanted to say, but it sounded too rude and as it turned out she didn't need to finish the sentence anyway because the assistant seemed to catch her drift.

"Alright, take a look at this number." She held up a scarlet satin bra, coupled with a thong so unbelievably minuscule that Rachel couldn't believe anyone would deign to call it underwear. The shop assistant must have seen the look on her face, because she reached back onto the stand and began to fish around for something else.

"The panties are interchangeable," she explained. "If you want something a little less revealing."

The thong she pulled off the rack could hardly be described as modest, considering that it was made entirely of lace and therefore didn't leave a whole lot to the imagination. Once again, Rachel saw the look of disapproval on the assistants face when she grimaced uncertainly.

"Maybe I should take you to the teen section," She said uncertainly, "They have lots of things that are more... conservative over there-"

"No!" Rachel cut her off. If she was going to do this, she wasn't going to do it by halves. If the assistant said this would get Will to notice her then she would just have to trust her, even if it meant spending a small fortune on something she wasn't totally in love with. "No, this is what I want. I'll take it."

"Which one?"

"All of it." Rachel pulled out her wallet, as the overly pleased assistant piled the things over her arm and beamed at the girl.

"On second thoughts, not that thing." She pointed to the corset. "I don't want him to think I'm trying too hard."

Or that I'm low class and trashy, Rachel thought but didn't add. Looking at the girl, she probably owned something similar.

"Do you want to try them on?" She reached out a hand to accept the proffered garments and then retracted it, thinking better of the idea.

"No."

"Are you sure? You should probably make sure they fit, I mean-"

"No, really. I'll just buy them." Rachel was 99 percent sure that she would be completely unable to go through with this if she saw herself wearing these scandalous undergarments under the harsh fluorescent lights of the changing rooms. It was a bit of a now or never situation.

"Alright. You're choice."

Yes, that was right, it was her choice. A bad one, maybe, but then it had been a bad choice to come in here in the first place. The point was that she had and now that she had she might as well go the whole way and buy some outrageous underwear that would make Mr. Schuester's eyes pop out of his head.

She wasn't entirely sure when it was that this whole plan had become about him instead of Finn and to be honest, it made it that much more inappropriate to be here buying bras and panties like these if they were for him. Teachers and bras were not usually two ideas that went hand in hand and yet her she was thinking about what the look on his face would be like if she showed him he things she had just bought and distinctly enjoying the idea. God, how utterly wrong this was and yet... and yet if it was so wrong, then why did it seem so right in Rachel's mind?

* * *

Will Schuester was, for want of a better explanation, completely fed up with his Spanish class. It was too hot in the class that day, which meant not a single person was listening to anything he said, despite the number of times he had reiterated to them that the material was important for exams. Heat did crazy things to people.

Rachel Berry, sitting in the front row, kept looking at him, like she had something she wanted to say, but clearly she didn't really or she would have said it by now. Besides that, he was doing his best to ignore her lately.

It wasn't anything personal, against her, it was more based off the fact that looking at her brought to mind memories which he didn't want to remember. He knew he was being too obvious about it; she clearly knew he was treating her differently than everyone else in the class and in Glee, but she hadn't said anything yet and he hoped she wouldn't. He doubted Rachel was obtuse enough to bring something like that up in front of other people; it was far too delicate a subject.

"Come on guys," he sighed hopefully. "I know it's hot and everyone wants to be outside, doing other stuff but just try and focus. We're almost done."

This succeeded in gaining roughly half the classes attention. Down the back, Puck continued to throw balls of paper at people and some of his less intelligent friends continued to cheer him on. Some of the sad looking kids in the corner continued moping, as well.

"Let's work on revision for the last twenty minutes, since you're all clearly not in the mood to learn anything new. We'll run over verbs in the past tense."

He turned back to the board and began to write up some of the more basic verbs in the present tense.

"Alright, can someone tell me the past participle of the verb 'ir'?"

He turned around to glance over the class. A few of the girls in the second row had their hands up. He nodded to one of them. In front of him, Rachel shuffled down in her seat and put her pencil in her mouth sucking on it uncomfortably. He looked back at the board and muttered some automatic praise to the girl who had just answered him.

"Right, right. And what about 'saber'? Anyone?" He turned back around to scan over the class and as he did so, his eyes fell on something they should most definitely not have been seeing.

Under her desk, Rachel's legs had drifted open, allowing him a full view of not only extremely upper inner thigh, but also a strip of dark red lace which was doing a very poor job of concealing-

Oh _God_. Will spun back around to the board far too quickly, his breath catching in his suddenly dry throat. The muscles in his stomach clenched and turned over, making him nauseous and dizzy in one split second. He should definitely, unquestionably, without a doubt not have seen what he just saw.

Not only could he not turn around again, but whatever train of thought he had been on before turning to look at Rachel was completely lost. He was fairly sure that image would be burned onto his brain for the next twenty years of his life, if not longer. Jesus, hadn't anyone ever taught that girl how to sit like a lady? He felt an uncomfortable tightening feeling in his groin and prayed to God that it was a passing sensation.

He swallowed uncomfortably, feeling the saliva slide down his throat without a hint of relief and blinked, trying to dispel the image from his immediate attention. Did she know, Will wondered, staring at his board and trying to take in what he was teaching so he could recommence with the lesson. Did she have any idea what she had just exposed to him?

"Finn?" He blurted out, because it was the first name that came to his mind when trying to think of students in his Spanish class, other than Rachel who he was hardly about to call on.

"Huh?" Clearly Finn had been paying about as much attention as most of the others in the class. Will felt wrong for picking on him, but it seemed the only way to take the attention off his momentary lapse in concentration.

"What's the um..." He couldn't remember the question and it took a few moments for it to come back to him. "Past participle of – of saber?"

"Oh." He didn't know it. Will knew he didn't know it, but anything that would divert his attention from the glaring distraction in the front row was good enough for him. "Um... sabes?"

The uncomfortable feeling in his groin was sadly not fading. It seemed every time it did, the image of that thin line of lace over dark folds of sweet flesh flashed back into his head and the feeling returned. He needed to get the image out of his head, or failing that, he needed to get his lower half out of sight of his class. In his whole teaching career Will had never found himself in a position quite so compromising.

"No." Will decided sitting down, behind the safety of his desk would be the best option. He managed to get there without looking at Rachel once and then proceeded to look down at his desk and sort through some paper that didn't need sorting to avoid making any further eye contact with her. Or any other kind visual contact with other parts of her body.

"Look, I can see some of you are having trouble so why don't you just, um, go over verbs together. In pairs. Test each other or something. It'll be good for you."

God he was pathetic. Since when did an accidental glimpse of a girls panties warrant a full scale panic attack? _A sixteen year old girl_, his moral inner voice reminded him, making him scowl. He was sick. He needed to go and see a counsellor and get whatever this was sorted out because he was quite clearly going insane.

He could feel eyes on him; all his students must think he was going mad. Maybe he could play it off on the heat. Make some casual comment in passing about how hot she was- _it_ was. How hot _it_ was. The weather. Maybe he could ask if the air conditioning was broken; it wasn't usually this hot.

He glanced out at the group to see if anyone was doing what he had asked. It was a bad idea, because naturally his eyes were drawn to the one person they shouldn't have been drawn to. She was looking at him, her eyes staring straight into his and her mouth chewing on her pencil. Her tongue licked her bottom lip lightly in what he was sure was an accidental way or at least would have been sure, if it wasn't for all the other signs suggesting otherwise. Right around then he knew. He knew that she knew, which meant she most probably knew why he was acting so strangely as well.

Suddenly he wasn't turned on so much as angry. She knew exactly what she was doing and still chose to do it because despite her arguments to the contrary, Rachel really was just a child. She didn't understand the consequences of her actions, hell she probably didn't even know what she wanted to get out of what she was doing. She was just acting impulsively and rashly and not thinking anything she did through.

These thoughts managed to burn the image of her stupid barely there underwear firmly from his brain and thankfully it also dispelled the urge he had to look at it again.

"Mr Schue?" Finn's hand was up and Will climbed gratefully to his feet, wandering over to the boy. Anything right now was a welcome distraction from the frustrating anomaly that was Rachel Berry.

* * *

At the Glee club meeting that afternoon Rachel sat in a chair waiting for Mr. Schuester to arrive with her knees firmly pressed together. She was still having trouble believing what she had done in Spanish class. She had felt so weird and unsexy, like she thought she was supposed to feel. It didn't feel sexy flashing your underwear to your teacher, it just felt dirty and uncomfortable and exposing.

Not to mention the extreme discomfort she was experiencing from wearing a thong for a whole six hour time period. Apparently no one had ever felt the need to stress quite how serious the 'beauty is pain' slogan actually was, although she now wished they had and maybe she would have brought spare underwear.

His reaction had been surprisingly satisfying though, or at least the initial reaction had been perfect. The angry glares and awkwardness that followed hadn't actually featured in her fantasy, but she had figured she would have to make some allowances. Things couldn't always go exactly as they were planned.

It had been nice to have someone pay attention to her for even the few seconds that Will Schuester's eyes had been fixed on her. She had felt special and wanted and not quite so invisible. It was the kind of feeling that was worth feeling wrong about afterwards. It was also the kind of feeling she was currently missing immensely.

When he arrived, Rachel decided that the best course of action after his scowls earlier that day would be to act like nothing had happened. It was almost certainly what he planned to do and she was perfectly happy to play along, to a certain extent. Hopefully he would be past punishing her unjustly by now. Maybe she could get a little bit of subtle flirtation in there if she played her cards right.

"Okay guys, I was thinking we could start on something new today." He didn't look at her, but it wasn't quite the staunch ignoring of a few days ago; he was getting better at faking it apparently.

"I know we've been working on the vocals for _Somebody to Love _for a little while now so I thought we could get into some choreography. Cool?"

There were various murmurs of agreement from everyone and he grinned his almost crooked grin which made Rachel's heart flutter a little bit.

"Okay, it's mostly partner work on this one, which means we'll have to arrange new rows in girl boy pairs, so I drafted up the plan."

He pulled out a sheet and studied it for a few seconds before listing off names. Rachel found herself unsurprisingly next to Finn, which was one of the bonuses of her so far average day. She could feel Quinn Fabray shooting daggers at the back of her skull but she ignored her.

One of the downfalls of having Finn as a partner, she quickly discovered, was that sometimes his size and generally uncoordinated body got the better of him and he ended up twirling her into other people, various objects and occasionally dropping her during the lifts.

After a particularly painful smack on the ground where her skirt flew up uncomfortably and she was quite sure everyone had gotten a glimpse of her ridiculous panties which she was now starting to regret, she gave up on it.

From where he was watching Will shook his head. Watching Finn try and do the moves was actually a little bewildering. For someone of his size and muscle tone they should have been easy and yet Rachel's steadily forming bruises would attest to a different story.

"Oh God, sorry," Finn repeated for what seemed to Will like the hundredth time that session. "I didn't mean to – are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Rachel answered, climbing to her feet and smiling at him, despite the small bump he could see forming on her head. "Only flesh wounds."

"Jesus, Mr. Schue, what am I doing wrong?"

"You just don't know how to hold a lady right, man," Puck announced, winking sleazily at Santana Lopez who rolled her eyes and grimaced.

"Ew. Please," Quinn pretend to throw up. Then suddenly her face paled a little bit and she jumped to her feet, rushing for the door. This was becoming somewhat routine, so Will chose to brush it off and return to the issue at hand.

"It's kind of a physics thing, Finn," He told the boy. "You have to use her weight to help you lift her."

Finn stared back blankly. "Huh?"

Will sighed.

"Maybe you should him how to do it?" Rachel proposed innocently enough. "If he's sees it done then maybe it'll be easier."

"No, I don't think that's necessary," he cut in quickly. "I'm sure just explaining it works fine."

"No, Mr. Schue, show me. There's a bit with the lift that I don't think I'm gonna get unless I can see it done properly."

"Okay, um, Puck you were doing it well, why don't you show him?"

"Why don't you?" The overly argumentative boy replied. "I dropped Quinn before and now she won't even let me touch her in case I damage some of the internal organs or other internal things."

Finn glared at him.

"Fine, okay, I can show you. Brittany, come here, you seemed to have it-"

"Shouldn't you use Rachel?" Finn asked uncertainly.

Will once again fought the urge to scowl. Was it just his unlucky day or did someone up there genuinely hate him?

"Yes Mr. Schuester, you should do it with me," Rachel agreed, obviously far more oblivious than he was to her poor choice of words. "I am his partner after all."

"Okay. Sure."

He desperately wanted to protest the idea, however it seemed to him if there was one sure fire way to work up suspicion it was to protest something for no apparent reason. And the last thing he needed right now was suspicion.

He kept a calm face as Rachel came over and took her place in front of him, reaching up a hand to take up the position. He took it gingerly, ignoring the strange feeling that shot up his arm when their fingers met. Had she felt that too, or was that just him, going crazy as usual?

"It's about propulsion," He explained to Finn, although his eyes were on Rachel's eyes, following them as her head spun in time with his.

"She's already moving, so you need to use that to get her up."

His hand drifted down to her thigh just above the knee, gripping the olive skin and lifting her leg up towards his waist. At this point, his body took in all the different sensations coming from her body to his in the one brief second where their bodies touched.

The inside of her thigh pressed into his shirt, trailing a line down to the belt of his pants where he could feel her other hip pressed to places she really should never have been touching. Her touch shouldn't have affected him the way it did; he should have remembered in this moment that Rachel Berry was his underage student who he was not attracted to in any way.

But Will was pretty much lost when he felt the small warm line of Rachel's core pressing against the top of his thigh, with far too little resistance between it and his leg. For the second time that day the thought of the area made his breath catch in his throat. From the look in her eyes, Rachel was feeling exactly the same thing, which scared him immensely. At least when it wasn't reciprocal he could act as though he was crazy. Now he didn't know how to act.

"Hold it there for one second," Finn's voice cut into the moment, right before Will lifted her off the ground. His hands froze in place where they were, one on her hip, one on the bottom of her thigh, gripping in readiness to pick her up. The boy couldn't have picked a worse place to freeze them if he tried.

"I never quite got this bit. I never got where to put my hands."

Against him, Rachel pressed herself into him a little closer. He was certain she had done it on purpose. The deliciously warm part of her body that he once again reiterated in his thoughts, should not have been touching him, moulded itself more firmly to his thigh. He could feel the slightest dampness and it made that frustrating feeling in his groin return full force. He wanted to groan and shove her away from him, but he resisted the urge with enormous effort.

"Do you get it now?" Will wondered if anyone else had noticed how strained his voice was. It probably didn't matter; he could play it off as strain from holding her.

"Kind of. Shouldn't my hands be lower if I'm going to lift her?"

Will shrugged, trying extremely hard to regain his thoughts. "Lower where?"

"As in higher up her thigh. So I can get a better grip?"

"Sure, if that's how you're comfortable."

At that moment, Will felt an almost imperceptible grinding on his leg, which made his eyes start to roll back into his head. She was trying to play with him and sadly, it was working all too well. He abruptly dropped her leg, allowing Rachel to fall to the floor with an unceremonious slap. She sat in a small pile on the floor, gaping at him and he quickly turned away.

"Okay, see, not that hard Finn." He announced, ignoring Rachel's indignant squeak. He probably should have felt bad about dropping her, but he didn't.

"Thanks Mr. Schue."

"Not a problem." Actually it was, but he could hardly announce that to the club. He clapped his hands and the pianist began the music once again. "Take it from the top."

After that Finn seemed to get the holds and lifts which Will was eternally grateful for, as he wasn't entirely sure he could take anymore of Rachel's games. At the end of the session he held her back. It was against his better judgement, as being alone with her seemed like nothing more than an opening for her to do something crazy but they needed to talk.

That was all they were going to do, too. Will had made up his mind about that long before he made a weak excuse about solos to keep her in the class. This meeting didn't have a chance in hell of leading to anything else.

"What's wrong Mr Schue?" Rachel asked, blinking up at him innocently as though she didn't know.

"We need to have a talk, Rachel." He tried to be gentle with her; it wasn't his intention to get her here just so he could yell at her. A simple explanation would do just fine for both of them.

Thankfully she didn't feign ignorance this time. "Right."

After that he was a little lost for words. How to bring up the delicate subject of her inane flirting was beyond him.

"Do you have anything you want to say?" Hopefully she would kick start the conversation and then he could follow on from there.

"Should I?" She brushed her skirt down so it sat neatly over her thighs. "I'm not going to say sorry, if that's what you want, because I'm not."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. Of course, I am a little sorry that you dropped me, but that's neither here nor there."

"Rachel." He looked at her listlessly. "This needs to stop."

"Why, what's wrong with it?"

"You know what's wrong with it. Do I really need to make a list for you, because I'm not sure there's enough paper to write it all down?" So much for remaining calm.

"So other people might not approve of it, so what?" She looked like she genuinely believed the words coming out of her mouth and it worried Will extremely that she might actually not understand what was so wrong about the relationship. "Since when did you care what other people think? You're the Coach of Glee club for goodness sake. If there's anyone who should be willing to break the mould it's you!"

"This isn't about breaking moulds. Jesus, this is about breaking _laws_. Do you understand that? You're underage."

"So? People break laws all the time. In fact I'm fairly sure this law along with speeding is one of the most commonly violated laws in the whole of the United States of America."

"Oh good, let's just break it then, because everyone else is doing it. That's a bit contradictory isn't it?"

She didn't answer for quite a long while. She sat in her chair and stared up at him, looking upset and for a few seconds he felt bad for doing that to her, until he remembered why he'd had to and the guilt faded. It really bothered him to no end that Rachel just didn't grasp the enormity of what she was trying to do.

"Do you even know what you want out of this? What are you trying to gain?"

"I want you," she answered, sounding far less angry and more like her usual self. "I want you and I want you to want me, too."

"And then what?" He leaned his elbow on the piano and rested his face in his hands. "What happens after that Rachel?"

"We..." She paused and looked down.

"See? You have no idea what you want! You just want to play around and see if you can get someone's interest and then your plan ends. What, did you think we were going to date, is that it? You thought we could run away and be together and live happily ever after. News Flash-"

"I thought we would sleep together," she said, so quietly he almost missed it and with those words his insides froze. All the words he had been about to say dried up in his mouth. He didn't need them though because she continued. "That's what I want; to sleep with you and then just see where it goes."

He couldn't speak; what could you possibly say to answer that? He just lifted his gaze and stared at her, while she stared at the ground. It was strange that all along he had assumed that was the objective and yet hearing her say it put a whole new spin on things. She really had a knack for saying things that were meant to be kept quiet.

"I mean maybe nothing will happen. Maybe we'll do it and then you won't like me anymore because I'm no good, or maybe something else will happen. I'm not asking you to be in love with me, I'm just asking for a chance."

He still had nothing to say so he looked back down at the top of the piano and tried to think the shock away. It was most definitely not normal to have a student say something like that. All his views of the naive, innocent Rachel flew even further out the window than they had during Spanish class. The words were reverberating around his skull, bouncing of the sides and back into his brain with alarming clarity. The worst thing was, the words almost turned him on.

"You should go," he muttered, not looking up at her. He didn't hear any movement.

"Really? Are we going to do this again? You're just going to run away and pretend like I didn't say what I just said? Because I did, and I meant it."

"Rachel really, you need to go. This is not the time, or the place to have this conversation."

"When is the time?"

Never. "Not now. Now go."

"Fine." She rose stroppily to her feet and stalked out of the room, not turning back to look at him once, not that he would have noticed if she did because he was still staring downwards, wondering what on earth he had done to get himself into this situation in the first place.

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**_Thanks for the reviews, they're greatly appreciated_**


	4. Foolish wishes

**Just a few quick notes; this chapter contains the first and only sex scene in the story and unfortunately it doesn't have the happiest ending. By that, I mean that realistically because of all the obstacles I just can't see Will and Rachel ever actually getting together and so I felt wrong writing it. Thus the ending of the chapter is probably not what most people would have wanted. There's one more chapter after this and then a prologue and its all done.**

**Also on another note I'm also aware that Mr Schuester's office is a completely exposed place with a whole corner made from glass and so couldn't actually be made very private, but let's just pretend it can for the sake of the story :P**

**Well that's all. Hope you enjoy, thanks for reading.**

* * *

_Our battles are repetitious_

_If not broken poetry_

_And maybe that's the attraction_

_That you're as self absorbed as me_

* * *

"Mr Schuester! Mr Schuester, wait!" He recognized the voice calling after him all too well. The instinctive response to it was to quicken his pace to try and get away from her, however he figured that might have been a little too obvious, so he forced a smile and stopped.

"What's up Rachel?"

He felt strange acting like he used to with her. It didn't feel right to pretend nothing had happened, not after what she had said, but he didn't know how else to act with her. The familiarity of the greeting didn't seem to bother her.

"I have some new sheet music."

The kids swarmed around them, flocking into school. The bell was due to ring in minutes. Will pushed his sunglasses up onto his head and looked down at the papers in her proffered hand.

"That's great Rach, but I thought we'd already gone over this; I want everyone to have equal singing opportunities. It won't be fun for them if you just-"

"Don't worry Mr Schue." She smiled up at him and he wondered how she could act so casually, like she hadn't said anything. Shouldn't there be some kind of awkward tension hanging between them? He was certainly feeling it, even if she wasn't. "I thought you might say that so I made sure that the parts are equally spread out. Some of them don't even have solos."

He raised his eyebrows in shock. "Well... Okay. Great. I'll take a look at them."

"Magnificent. I'll see you in glee." She tilted her head in a brief, slightly fake smile and then hurried off in the direction of the entrance. He glanced down properly at the sheets.

The top sheet was the alto part of a song he wasn't familiar with.

'_What are you so afraid of'_ the bold lettering across the top read. He frowned slightly and flicked over to the next sheet.

'_Give in to me_' by Michael Jackson. He knew the song but... why on earth would Rachel want to sing this? He flicked quickly over the next few pages, scanning the titles.

_I Want You To Want Me, He's Playing Hard To Get_, _Take Me On The Floor_?! Holy hell. Will gaped and dropped the sheets to his side. What the hell was she playing at? These were the least subtle hints he had ever gotten in his entire life, and he had gotten some pretty blatant hints. This was a lot of effort to put into something that wasn't likely to ever eventuate into anything.

Admittedly, deep – and by deep Will meant extremely, 15000 leagues under the sea kind of deep – down, it was kind of hot and yet so wrong at the same time that he couldn't really get past it. He'd never actually had someone use sheet music as a pulling technique and it wasn't entirely fruitless, it was just a pity that the first one to try it happened to be his sixteen year old student.

"Rachel," he yelled, looking up, planning to tell her exactly what she could do with her extremely pointless sheets, but she had already disappeared off into the crowd of people filing inside the doors.

"What's that?" He jumped at the sound of a voice extremely close to his ear and turned to find Emma standing at his elbow, pointing to the paper in his left hand.

"What, this?" He waved it disinterestedly. "Nothing, it's just some paperwork for a competition Glee club's entering."

"Oh wow," she leaned closer, reaching down as if to look at it, but before her had could reach the sheets he snatched them away.

"Very confidential paperwork."

"Right. Well when's it on? I'd love to come. Do you know the date?"

"I'm not totally sure yet," Will lied, fiddling with the corners of the pages and then thinking better of it and shoving them into his bag. "When I know, you'll know. It was Rachel's idea see, she's all about advancing the group in the community but she hasn't got all the details on it yet."

Where on earth was this coming from? Why couldn't he have just said it was Spanish papers? That wouldn't have warranted any questions; Emma didn't even speak Spanish. At least Will didn't think she did. And even if she could, it was highly unlikely that she would be interested in any Spanish written by his students. Around sixty percent of them were failing anyway, which wasn't doing a whole lot for his self esteem.

"It probably won't be very good though, the competition's pretty minor."

"Oh well. It's good to get out there and get some time on the stage, regardless."

"Right. That's exactly what I thought."

"So Rachel's organising it? Wow, that girl, she certainly has... drive. I mean, sometimes it's a little scary what with the over ambitious attitude and I'm sure some of the other students are a little terrified of her, but she seems like a perfectly nice girl to me."

"Mm," Will murmured in agreement, internally cursing himself for ever bringing her up. He didn't want to talk about her right now, not after everything that happened. To be perfectly honest in fact, he didn't really want to talk about her at all, ever again. "Nice girl. Yeah."

Emma smiled a knowing smile and Will raised his eyebrows at her. She couldn't possibly know could she? It wasn't that obvious and Rachel wouldn't have said anything to anyone else. At least he hoped she wouldn't.

"What?" He asked uncertainly, trying to force a smile and seem casual about the whole question.

"Oh nothing,"

"No, seriously, what?" He laughed, again feigning indifference but it just came out as a kind of hollow awkward laugh.

"Well, if you ask me, I think she has a bit of a crush on you."

Will cleared his throat uncomfortably. "What? _No_. Rachel, on _me_... No way, that's too weird. I mean, she wouldn't – I'm too old for her."

Emma laughed even more uncomfortably, although Will failed to see why this revelation would make _her_ uncomfortable. Shouldn't he be the one feeling awkward right then?

"Oh come on Will. She's a young girl who gets made fun of constantly and pretty much the only person who's ever been nice to her is you. You and Finn Hudson, but he's got a pregnant girlfriend so I hardly think she'll be chasing him for very long. Besides, you're not old at all; you're young and attractive and _sensitive_... and kind, and handsome – or I mean, that's probably what she thinks, I wouldn't know, you know, I don't really look at you in that way but anyway; there're a million reasons why she might like you."

"Not _everyone_'s mean to her."

Emma looked at him a little incredulously.

"Okay, maybe they are, but it's just because they don't understand her. She's a great girl but she can be a little overbearing at times. When she gets out of high school people will appreciate her more."

"Well that's exactly the appeal with you, isn't it? You're already out of high school. She can just skip a step."

Before Will could open his mouth to answer, the bell rang, making Emma jump slightly. He smiled.

"I have to go. I have freshmen first period and you wouldn't believe the stuff they get up to when you leave them alone in a classroom for more than five minutes."

Emma smiled back and clasped her hands tidily in front of her. "Good bye Will."

He turned to go and heard her voice calling from behind him.

"Be careful with her. She's quite emotional."

"Trust me, I know," he muttered, before heading off into the school in the direction of his classroom.

* * *

There was a knock on his office door and he looked up, expecting to find Emma or maybe Ken, but unfortunately, no that was too harsh, _surprisingly_, it was Rachel again.

He was quite sure until this week she had never been in his office once and now all of a sudden she was staying after school just to come and see him.

Once again, against his better judgement he waved her in.

"I'm busy Rachel." He couldn't be bothered with the pretence that they usually put up, pretending not to know what she was doing coming into his office. There was only so many times that he could feign indifference and after that stunt she had pulled in the morning, that count had expired.

"I want to talk to you."

"Is that all you want to do?"

"No." The blunt honesty shocked him. He was used to a far more reserved Rachel who while she spoke her mind, didn't usually have these kinds of thoughts to speak.

"Then you should go." He said and she opened her mouth to speak but he cut her off. "And _don't_ say 'why'."

"But Mr Schuester, why not? I know you want to and I want to too and I just don't understand why you're so dead set against this?"

"Because it's illegal," he sounded out each word, carefully and slowly, because there was only so many times he could repeat himself without getting annoyed. "And I'm married and most importantly, you don't understand what you're asking for. And besides, that you're wrong; I don't want to."

"Yes you do."

"_No_, I don't."

"_Yes_, you do."

"No, I really, really don't think I do."

"Liar."

Will looked at her, preparing to continue their unbelievably childish argument when something stopped him. The something was that Rachel stood up, walked to the door and locked it, pulling the blinds shut over it. Then she turned around and started to take her clothes off.

* * *

Rachel didn't know what exactly came over her in that moment. In her whole life she had only ever been naked in front of two men and both of them were her fathers. Besides, that had been a long time ago, back before she had the moral decency to be embarrassed by nakedness. Why those morals had suddenly chosen to desert her in what was probably her biggest hour of need was entirely beyond her.

She put it down to frustration in the end, because she had nothing else to blame it on and she needed something. Frustration with herself for being scared of her feelings and finally feeling so overwhelmed by them that she was expressing herself by stripping in a teacher's office and practically begging him to sleep with her.

Frustration with him, because he continued to refuse her even though she wanted him terribly and he seemed to be even more scared of his emotions than she was. And frustration with the unfairness of the world that it seemed the people she wanted were always the people that she simply couldn't have. Why couldn't she fall for the right guy, just one time?

"Rachel, what the hell are you doing?" His hands were gripping his pen on the desk far too tightly and his eyes were trained to her face as though he couldn't bear to look anywhere else.

"I've had enough." She pulled her sweater over her head and dropped it on the ground. "Enough of people telling me that I can't have what I want. I want you Mr Schuester, please just let me have you."

The words sounded ridiculous to her, but she was too far gone to care anymore. She took small steps in the direction of his desk. In his chair he leaned away from her and looked down at the floor.

"Look at me Mr Schue," She slowly lifted her shirt up over her stomach, pulling it over her head and dropping that on the floor too. He didn't comply.

"Mr Schuester." She reached out a hand and touched the bottom of his chin, pulling his face up and forcing his eyes onto hers. They had a pleading look in them which made her heart wrench painfully but it was too late to stop now and even if she could have, she didn't really want to.

"Look at me," she repeated in a whisper.

"Rachel don't do this to me," He replied in a dry croak, his eyes staring beseechingly up at her. "You don't know what you're doing."

"Yes I do," she replied, her fingers moving to her skirt and undoing the buttons one at a time, until she could slide it down over her hips. With an almost pained expression, that Rachel had seen on him for the first time one week ago, his eyes tore from her own and travelled down over her body.

She felt exposed, standing almost completely naked with a man's eyes drinking in every detail of her skin. Exposed and yet invigorated. There was a charged energy in the air which sent a buzz down Rachel's spine.

He groaned and leant his head back against the chair, closing his eyes. Rachel once again took his hand and pressed it to her stomach, in the same fashion she had done in the auditorium merely days ago. Only this time, there was no fabric to act as a barrier and the chills that shot through her body were something completely new to her.

She felt a small tug as Will tried to pull his hand back, but the effort was half hearted and she held it there with no trouble.

"Stop fighting it," she said, shifting her grip so she could slide his hand upwards, over her ribs. She shivered when he touched her, despite the fact that his eyes screwed up even more than they had been before. "Just stop."

His hand reached her bra and finally his eyes opened. Rachel held his hand more firmly, ignoring the nervous churning feeling in her stomach and stared into his light green eyes. She was nervous and tense and excited all at the same time, waiting to see what he would do.

For a very long time they stayed where they were, Rachel's hands clasping Will's to her breast, their eyes seeming to battle for control of the situation. Then with another groan, Will gave in.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," He whispered, and then his hand was on the back of her neck and he pulled her down gently, kissing her in a way that was unlike anything she had ever experienced before. His lips were firm and soft at the same time, moulding to hers and falling into a rhythm that Finn, during the two kisses they had shared, had not been able to accomplish. It was hungry and restrained at the same time, as though he was afraid to kiss her too hard and lose himself. But that was exactly what Rachel wanted him to do; she wanted pure unadulterated passion and desire and no thinking or self-control. They didn't need it now, not anymore. Not now that he had finally given in.

He tasted nice in an unusual way, with a slightly bitter hint of coffee marring the flavour, but Rachel didn't mind overly much. Coffee wasn't her drink of choice but somehow Will managed to make it seem sexy. Goodness knew how.

She carefully lowered herself onto the chair, pressing her knees either side of his legs and straddling him, tilting his head backwards to gain better access to his mouth. It wasn't the most comfortable position she had ever been in; the chair was digging into the outsides of her thighs on both sides and her muscles were straining from holding herself up. The kiss though, made up for any discomfort she may have been feeling, because the sensation of Will Schuester's tongue on hers, along her teeth and rubbing the rough roof of her mouth sent butterflies flapping wildly around her stomach.

She lowered herself down onto his lap and he slid forward in the first real display of reciprocation he had shown, pressing his groin into hers. A sharp sudden pleasure shot through her and she pulled away from the kiss, gasping.

"What is it?" He asked uncertainly, his hands jumping back off her as though maybe her gasp was due to the sudden realisation that this was a mistake. She shook her head wordlessly and pulled his lips back to hers, pushing her hips into his in an effort to recreate the feeling that had passed just as quickly as it had arrived.

He groaned against her mouth and she realised with a renewed sense of vigour that she could feel him hardening against her. Her stomach twisted in arousal and she felt a slight throbbing between her legs.

She rolled her hips over his once again and the sensation between her legs increased. She gasped a little more openly than the last time, pulling back to rest her forehead against his as she continued to grind over his ever growing erection.

Her eyes met his and the look in them had distinctly changed from the last time she had seen them. His pupils were dilated, and seemed to almost burn with an excitement that she was certain mirrored her own. Rachel's breath came in short sharp gasp, her shoulders heaving as she ground her hips into his.

Will's lips moved to her neck, sucking on the skin and she groaned, far too loudly and far too openly for what was meant to be a secret rendezvous in her teacher's office.

"Oh my goodness," she breathed, twisting her fingers into his hair. "If I'd have known this felt _this_ good, I would have done it earlier."

"I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear that," Will grunted against her neck, his tongue licking a small line over her skin.

Rachel wanted to tell him to stop being the mature adult now, since it was a little late for that, but she was still conscious of saying something that might trigger his responsibility reflex and make him dump her onto the floor and run off like he had done during Glee the other day.

"Wait a second," she breathed, pulling back and drawing in a deep breath. "This is hurting my legs. Can we please move?"

"Sure."

His hands clasped under her legs and she was lifted through the air in an almost effortless seeming motion, until she found herself seated on the table with Will's legs pressed in between hers and his lips kissing hungrily up and down her neck.

These pleasures she was feeling now were different to the ones she was used to. They were short and sharp and faded quickly as new waves rose up to take their place. It was good, she decided; better than good, it was great.

Will's teeth grazed the side of her throat, biting down lightly and sending an entirely new shock wave through her. It wasn't painful but it had an edge to it that Rachel liked.

She slid her fingers to the buttons on his shirt and fumbled her way down the line as quickly as she could. She wasn't very adept at taking clothes off, especially when she was distracted by someone trying and succeeding in taking her bra off.

He bit her collar bone and she gasped in shock and delight. Piece by piece, clothes were strewn on the floor until Rachel found herself sitting completely naked in front of her teacher who was wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts.

Lips danced over every inch of her skin, planting small, stupor inducing kisses on her. Her eyes were glazing over and she was having trouble linking her thoughts together, not that they were on much more than the immediate physical pleasure she was experiencing under the caress of Will's eager mouth.

Small moans escaped from her as every so often he hit a spot which set her nerves shivering and twitching in response. Rachel was finally starting to understand just what it was like to be out of control of your own body.

She found it almost embarrassing, the way the noises erupted from her throat without warning and she was powerless to stop them. It felt humiliating and exposing, as though she was telling a secret that she should have been keeping to herself.

Her eyes were completely unfocused by the time he dipped his head to her breast, nipping the bare skin with his teeth and allowing them to lightly graze over her nipple. Rachel shivered and wriggled dazedly.

"That feels good," she whispered disjointedly and Will seemed to take this as a cue to nibble harder, pressing his mouth down and flicking the nipple with his tongue, drawing groans out of Rachel once again.

"That's what I'm aiming for," Will answered throatily as he raised his head back to hers and kissed her.

His tongue searched hungrily in her mouth now, as though looking for some response that he wasn't quite getting. Rachel wasn't exactly certain what he wanted of her and so she went with the most obvious option.

Reaching a hand down to the thin fabric of his boxers, she rubbed over the hard length inside them, causing him to groan and grimace in a pleasurably pained kind of way. In return, his deft fingers moved to her thighs and before she knew what was happening, two of them had glided inside of her and her whole body shook in reaction to the newfound sensation.

They slid in and out of her in a practiced manner, leaving Rachel to wonder just how many times he had done the same thing with his wife, but she quickly dispelled the thought; the last thing she needed to think about at that moment was that fact that her teacher was a married man. From the heady look on his face he most definitely wasn't thinking about that.

With a sudden sharp sensation and a rush of heat, Rachel felt a new pleasure rising in her stomach and her eyes widened, rolling backwards until she could barely even see anything. She bucked her hips into his hand suddenly desperate to reach the crest of whatever wave she was riding on that was making her feel this extraordinary. The moans that escaped from her this time were a series of unintelligible vowels and groans with Will's name tossed occasionally into the mix.

All too quickly, right when Rachel thought she was ready to finish it, Will stopped moving his hand, pulling out of her and leaving Rachel a shuddering, over stimulated ball of nerves and senses on the table in front of him.

"Why did you stop?" She asked, unable to keep herself focused enough to even look at him properly. Her breath came in short, uneven gasps and she could barely understand the words she managed to get out.

"Rachel, are you sure this is what you want to do?" His voice was low and husky and filled with a need Rachel had never heard used in conjunction with her name before. "There's no going back after this starts."

She chose not to answer, instead grabbing his shoulders and yanking his mouth down to hers to kiss him roughly. It was a sloppy, poorly executed kiss that was pretty much the best she could manage in her highly aroused state, when all she could think about was trying to satisfy the need inside her. Pulling her lips briefly away from his, she slid back over the table and lay down, taking his hands and tugging him down with her.

It felt strange to have another body lying on top of your own. Will's body was different to the only other male body which had lain on hers. Finn was large and a little awkward and heavy. Will was heavy too, but it was a lithe, strong heavy that sent chills down her spine. He felt like a safe person to be underneath and she liked it unquestionably more than she had expected to.

Wrapping her legs around his waist, she felt him pressing into her, exactly where she wanted him to be and with a small murmur of excitement she rubbed her hips against his, feeling the now familiar sensation of the waves of pleasure coursing through her.

Will pushed back into her, his erection seeming to grow with every pass of her hips and she groaned expectantly in his ear. The grinding was nice but it wasn't doing anything for the hollow feeling in Rachel's body, predominantly in the place Will was rubbing most eagerly against.

She slid her hands down and pulled his underwear off, releasing him and feeling the sudden press of heated, solid skin against her own tender flesh. She murmured something in his ear, although she wasn't entirely sure that what she had said was a logical string of words, or even if they were words at all. All she knew was she wanted Will and she wanted him now. And that was exactly what she got.

The sudden, sharp pain pulled her directly out of the stupor and she gasped, her fingers digging into his back for a whole new reason. It hurt. And it didn't just hurt; it _hurt_.

"Ow!" Rachel grimaced, swallowing hard and looking up at the ceiling. "Ow, God, stop."

Will's movement ceased in what she could feel was an effort to restrain himself.

"Are you okay?" He held himself completely still inside her as she waited for the throbbing, tearing pain to pass. It didn't.

"No," Rachel answered, before she could stop herself, putting a hand to her mouth to muffle another groan. "Oh my God it hurts."

"I'll stop. Should I stop?" he began to move to pull out and Rachel dug her fingers into his shoulders harder.

"Could you _please_ stop moving?!" She hissed. "I had no idea it felt like this. I thought they were exaggerating."

"Apparently not," Will answered, dropping his head to rest on the desk but holding himself still, something which must have taken a great deal of effort. "I think we should stop."

"Just," Rachel paused, "just hold on a second. I don't want to stop."

It seemed like they had gone too far to give up now. After all the work she had put in to get here, it couldn't really end just like this. It wouldn't be fair to either of them and the awkward scenes playing out between them in Rachel's mind pushed her to finish what she had started.

"There," Rachel lied, "It's alright now."

"Are you sure?" He moved slightly and Rachel winced. It was tender, but not unbearably so. Just uncomfortable enough for it to be unpleasant.

"I'm sure."

"Okay. I'm moving now," he warned her, and she felt the sudden tug of flesh against flesh as he pushed in a little further. It grated on her, like the feeling of hot water on too cold skin, or accidentally scraping a pre-existing graze on your elbow.

It was horribly awkward, made even worse for her by the occasional grunts of pleasure from Will as he thrust in and out of her, trying in vain to be gentle with her. It hurt and stung and it was too quiet and it was all completely wrong. This wasn't how it was meant to go. It was meant to be special and beautiful or if not that, at the very least passionate and wild. This was uncomfortable and sore and a little bit heartbreaking.

Suddenly she became acutely aware of all the strange, unfamiliar noises around her, like the slow slap of flesh and the rustle of papers as her back rubbed them over the wooden desk. She could her liquidy sucking noises as he pulled in and out her but it didn't sound sexual and exciting; just squishy and weird, like jelly or something. She felt almost detatched from the experience, as though she was watching the two of them from the outside, except the uncomfortable rubbing served to ground her a little too much to truly believe that.

The pleasure in having Will moving inside her wasn't quite enough to overcome any of the other, far more horrible aspects of the event and as she felt Will come to a grunting, shivering climax inside her, she felt one single wave of slightly marred pleasure before it was over and he collapsed on her, his body weight no longer pleasant, but a burden that she neither enjoyed nor wanted to carry.

His sweat was cold, rubbing off on her already chilled, exposed body and before she knew it, silent tears began to trickle down her cheeks. This was all wrong. Everything had been perfect and she had done nothing but ruin it for herself. Her tear trickled into Will's hair and he rolled off her silently. They lay still for a long time before either one of them plucked up the courage to say something.

"Rachel, I'm so sorry," he whispered, not looking at her, most probably, she guessed because he couldn't. She didn't blame him; she didn't want to look at him either.

She didn't know what he was apologising for because there were so many things that shouldn't have happened. She just nodded and wiped away the tears. Climbing to her feet, Rachel pulled her clothes back on, the strategically planned underwear now feeling more like a joke than anything else.

He didn't say anything else and she didn't expect him to. What else could be said? 'Sorry'. That was it. It was what he was and tragically, it was what she was too.

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**Thanks for all the reviews and alerts and favourites! So nice and definitely encouraging, it's great. Thanks.**


	5. Musing

**Sorry about the wait everyone, the final chapter is being posted right after this one.**

* * *

_You were everything for a little while_

_But I broke it, I broke it,_

_Didn't I?_

Sorry. Throughout his whole life, Will had never quite understood the meaning of the word as he did now. He had never had reason to. The events of the last week were the one thing which he completely and utterly regretted, to the point where he wasn't entirely sure they were things which could be remedied no matter what he said or did.

It was a situation that contained far too many 'should'ves' for anyone's liking and far too many mistakes which should never have been made. Will never should've given in to Rachel. He was a fully grown man with morals which told him not to do what he had done, lines which he had crossed so far over he could no longer see them from such a distance and most importantly responsibilities which he had flouted in order to indulge in ten minutes of guilty pleasure.

He never should've encouraged her in the first place. An outright refusal, while it may have been harsh would have stopped the problem. Rachel might be confident when it came to performing but she lacked the self-confidence to try and force something that was clearly not reciprocated.

He should've tried explaining it to her when she didn't get it. He could have gone over all the things that were wrong with the idea and why it could never happen rather than constantly telling her she didn't understand, he could have made her understand.

He should've but he hadn't and it was too late now to think about anything like that. It only seemed to make things infinitely worse than they already were.

How he could disappoint himself like that was beyond Will, but eternally worse was the idea that not only had he let himself down, he had let her down as well. He had known she didn't quite grasp the gravity of what she was asking for. Rachel, despite being smart and mature and emotionally developed was naive. She had yet to realise that there was a darker, less pleasant side to the world and it absolutely killed him to have been the one to show it to her.

That was the job of some high school or college boyfriend when they had a relationship secure and comfortable enough to deal with things like that. What Will and Rachel had was not even a relationship, let alone something secure and comfortable. That was demonstrated only too well by the way Rachel had been carefully avoiding him for the last week.

As if it wasn't bad enough that she would walk into class or meetings with bloodshot red eyes, attesting to not only her lack of sleep but all the crying she had been doing. Crying over him, because of what _he_ had done to her, what he had _stolen_ from her in one of her misguided attempts at trying to be loved by someone other than herself.

No, that was bad enough, but seeing her glance at him and look away, look down with lifeless eyes that only days before had been sparkling and beautiful, it hurt worse than anything had ever hurt Will. That he was the one to kill her spirit made it unbearable to look at her. She deserved better; she had deserved everything she wanted and he hadn't been able to give it to her and for that he really was eternally sorry.

He genuinely felt as though he had taken something irreplaceable from her; but then he wouldn't be wrong because he had. And while it might be arguable that some of the blame lay with her, Will couldn't see any of this as Rachel's fault. Neither of them had known it would be quite this bad, but it was his responsibility and his duty to help her make good decisions. What kind of role model was he if he could be tempted so easily? What kind of a good decision was this?

It was thoughts like these which made Will want to smack his head against a table or anything hard and wooden really. Anything except his desk. He couldn't go in there anymore, because the table symbolised his fall from grace and he couldn't bear to think about it.

He couldn't bear to think about anything anymore. All he wanted was for her to forgive him, but he couldn't think of a single reason why she might want to do that. And more importantly, he didn't have the faintest idea how to go about showing her just how sorry he truly was.

* * *

For a week, Rachel cried. Not nonstop but on and off quite regularly. She cried when she was falling asleep at home in her bed. She cried when she walked past Mr Schuester's office in the hallways. She cried when people spoke to her, she cried when people didn't speak to her, she cried when sad music came on and most painfully she cried when Will looked at her with those big guilty green eyes of his.

To be honest, Rachel didn't know exactly what it was that she was crying for. It was nothing quite as virtuous as lost innocence or lack of virtue. She would say, if forced to put a name to it, that it was her broken dream which made her cry. Her idealistic view of not only herself but Will as well had been shattered in the ten seconds that they had lain silent and uncomfortable on his desk, trying to work out just what had gone so wrong.

Was it her fault for expecting too much? For thinking that maybe he would be different and that he wouldn't be able to hurt her? Maybe she shouldn't have been so naive. Or maybe it was his fault for not sticking to his values. She might have thrown herself at him but he was a grown man, wasn't it his responsibility to be the mature controlled one?

Who knew, maybe, just maybe it was no one's fault. Maybe it was just one of those things that happened entirely by accident and had an effect but no cause. Oh who was she kidding, she blamed him. She didn't want to, but she did. The trust she had felt had died along with her inexperience that day not so long ago on the desk and without trust there was nothing to their relationship beyond the memory of the pain and regret that he had caused her to feel.

She had given away something she could never, ever get back and what did she have to show for it other than some underwear which was now shrivelled up into piles of ash in the bottom of her fireplace and some puffy eyes?

In a way, Rachel kind of hated herself for hating him and in another way she didn't hate him at all. She hated them and what they had done but not Will. She couldn't quite bring herself to hate him, even if she had have tried, which she hadn't. Hating him would only make him hate her and if there was one thing she didn't need right then, it was more people who hated her.

Rachel had slowly gone about involuntarily alienating herself from her peers one by one this week in a series of events which she regretted almost as much as the events that had led up to her feeling compelled to do this. She had started with Finn and worked her way out from there.

"Rachel," he had called after her as she hurried out of another Glee practice, wanting to be away from this place as quickly as she could. She had ignored Finn and kept walking.

"Rachel!" He repeated louder. She gave up and turned around.

"Can I help you?"

He looked a little taken aback at her aggressive tone but he hadn't given up. "What's going on with you?"

"Nothing, and I'll thank you to stay out of my personal life. It has nothing to do with you Finn, you have a girlfriend, remember?"

He frowned at her. "Okay, seriously, I'm not trying to get into you, you're just my friend and there's obviously something wrong with you."

Too right, Rachel thought bitterly. But then he must have already known that, after the way he had been avoiding her like the plague after that kiss. Everyone knew it; even she did, she just didn't know what it was that was so wrong with her.

"Look Finn, why don't you just stay away from me? Go back to your football and your cheerleader girlfriend and your perfect life and leave me alone. The last thing I need right now is someone trying to insinuate their way into my life; it's hard enough already without you."

"Rachel, I'm _sorry_. I don't know what I did-"

"It's not about you!" Rachel realised she was screaming and sighed, putting a hand to her forehead and trying to calm herself down. People stared at them as they walked past, probably wondering what he was doing talking to her in the first place, let alone being screamed at. She took a deep breath and recommenced the conversation in a quieter tone.

"None of this has anything to do with you, alright? You're really not that important and I have far bigger things to worry about than you, so why don't you stop trying to make yourself feel special by acting like I care about you and just back off."

She turned on her heel and walked away, leaving a stunned Finn in her wake. Those words had been harsh and maybe unnecessary; only the smallest bit of her anger was directed at him and he didn't really deserve to be yelled at, but it was too late then to undo it. It was done and really, Rachel couldn't find it in herself to care. She meant what she had said; Finn really wasn't important to her, not anymore.

As she had passed the music room door, she saw the rest of the glee club standing and watching her and behind them, Will stood, his eyes trained to her face like everyone else. He had looked so guilty and pitying and pained that as soon as their eyes met she had to look away. She didn't want to look at him and see the formerly happy, eager smile that had died because of her actions; it hurt too much.

After that, the others had drifted, little by little until Rachel was all alone. Kurt had stopped talking to her only one day later when in a fit of rage that had absolutely nothing to do with him she had made some extremely unnecessary comments about his sexuality. Mercedes had begun ignoring her when Rachel called her fat and ugly after Finn had once again dropped her on the ground during rehearsal and the poor girl had tried to help her up.

When she told Artie his place in Glee was a complete travesty, since he could neither walk, nor sing overly well Tina and Artie had joined the 'we hate Rachel' club along with the rest of Glee including Rachel herself. She didn't like what she was doing, she didn't do it on purpose and she would give anything not to do it, but hurtful things seemed to pour out of her mouth these days in what she guessed was an attempt to even up the hurt in the group by inflicting pain on others.

She wished it would stop, that the pain would go away and she could go back to how she was only days before. It seemed like a life time had passed since that Tuesday and it was almost impossible to remember life before it. She wondered, if she were to forget the hurtful memories of the last week, would she have anything left? Was she anything now except for her actions and her words and her emotions? It certainly didn't feel like it.

She didn't even feel like a person, she felt like a doll, tied to some strings and forced to walk around, pretending as though nothing had gone wrong and unable to show her emotions in any way other than shouting and screaming and crying. And the worst thing about all of it, was that it was of her own doing.

She was the one allowing herself to wallow, to mope, to live without really living. It wasn't fair and it wasn't right and she wished beyond anything else that she could fix herself. She wished she could, but she couldn't, because despite everything she thought she knew, Rachel didn't have the slightest clue where to even begin.


	6. An Almost Happy Ending

_In the confusion and the aftermath_

_You are my signal fire._

_The only resolution and the only joy_

_Is the faint spark of forgiveness in your eyes._

Rachel sat in the auditorium. It was large and dimly lit and empty, save for her, alone on the stage. Her legs dangled over the edge of it as she let the flood of thoughts that had been swirling around her mind for the last week settle.

It was Tuesday. Two weeks since _that_ Tuesday, when it seemed that everything had gone off the rails and spiralled out of her control. Now no one was talking to her. Everyone was sick of the drama that came with being around her and honestly she couldn't blame them; she was sick of it too. She would give anything to go back seven days and stop any of this from happening.

When had she suddenly decided to stop controlling herself? How was she ever meant to achieve any of her goals now, when all she wanted to do was sleep and cry and yell at people? How had she let her life get so messed up?

"Rachel."

She shut her eyes and willed the voice to go away. Maybe it was in her head and if she thought hard enough, it would get drowned out. Then she heard the footsteps and she knew it was no imaginary voice.

She put her hands on the ground, readying herself to stand up.

"Wait, don't go. Please, just give me a second."

A hand touched her shoulder and instinctively she flinched away from it. Looking up to meet Will's eyes she saw the hurt look in them, but he moved back quickly.

"What could you possibly have to say?" She asked hopelessly, shaking her head looking back down at the ground.

"A lot of things. Hear me out. I promise not to – to touch you again."

It hurt to hear the words come out of his mouth; as though he thought he was some kind of infectious diseases and he might hurt her if he got too close. She didn't want him to feel like that, she didn't want this to be his fault. She just wanted to forget about it and move on.

"Fine. Say whatever you have to say."

Even though she felt a little ill with the idea of having to confront Will and actually discuss what had happened, deep down she felt a little happy. She was glad that there was at least one person in the world who still wanted to talk to her. It might have been out of a misplaced sense of responsibility, but it felt good in a bittersweet way to have someone who finally paid attention to her again.

He was silent for a very long time, long enough for Rachel to wonder if he really had anything to say at all or if he only wanted to stand in her presence, the way she had oddly been craving his, just for closure if nothing else.

"I'm sorry," he said finally, uncertainly, painfully.

She shrugged, drawing small patterns on the wooden stage with her fingers and pretending to be too busy to look up at him. In truth, there was just too much pain and regret in his voice for her to look at in that moment.

"No, really Rachel. I don't even know how to start trying to explain it and I wish I had something better to tell you, but I just don't have the words. I'm just so, so sorry that I ever did what I did to you."

"Don't say it like that." Her voice was soft, so soft she didn't know if he could hear her properly. He was standing so far away from her now that she was surprised when he answered.

"I – I didn't mean it like that."

"Neither did I. I wasn't talking about the connotations, I meant that I don't like the way you're implying that it was something that _you_ did. Do you think I didn't want it just as much as you?"

Rachel didn't look up, but her mind's eye she could picture him shaking his head in disagreement.

"That's not the point. It's my job to say no. I'm meant to teach you how to live, how to make mature decisions, how to do the right thing but I can't do that myself. It's my job to make sure you don't get hurt, not by anyone, but especially not by yourself and somehow I've broken both of those rules in one day."

"I want to agree with you," she smiled sadly, finally looking up at him. "I want to, but not because it's true. I want to say you're telling the truth because it's easy and it means I can pretend that I didn't do anything wrong. But we both know that's not true and it seems like a waste of time now to pretend anything to the contrary."

He sighed and closed his eyes, looking down at the ground. "I'm sorry."

"So am I. I'm sorry I put so much pressure on you to want me. And I'm sorry that you're blaming yourself for something that isn't your fault."

In a self preserving way, Rachel wished he would correct her, if for no reason other than it would have helped her save the slightest bit of face.

"You're killing us all Rachel." He took the smallest step she had ever seen back in her direction and the tiny, almost invisible gesture made Rachel want to cry tears of horribly depressed joy. "You're killing _me_. Do you know what it's like to see you walking around here every day looking like your life's ended? It hurts, like you couldn't even imagine how badly it hurts."

She laughed a hollow laugh which escaped before she could bite it back.

"I think I can hazard a guess, seeing as how you look the same way. It's extremely depressing to see, trust me."

He laughed back, a slightly more genuine laugh and took another step closer. "I guess we make a pretty sad pair, don't we?"

Rachel nodded dismally and looked back down at the ground.

"Can I ask you a question Mr Schuester? It's quite personal."

He murmured affirmatively. "I think we're a little past personal level now."

"Did you really want it? I mean if I hadn't have thrown myself at you quite so hard, would you ever have considered me as a viable option."

He didn't say anything and Rachel's stomach tightened in an unpleasant way. Silence could only mean two things; either it was an answer that he was embarrassed to say, or one that he thought would hurt her. Considering their current conversation, Rachel was guessing at the latter.

"Be honest," she muttered, tapping her fingertips on the wood. "If it makes it any easier, I promise not to cry."

He chuckled an uneven, uncertain chuckle which left her heart aching with an empty feeling that didn't make a lot of sense to her.

"Rachel, even now, I..." He stopped and glancing up, Rachel saw him looking down once again. "Even now, I can't consider you as a 'viable option'."

"But before?"

"No. I would never – if you hadn't – I don't think... Look, it's not as simple as it sounds. I would never have even looked at you in that way if the idea hadn't been planted there somehow. That's not the way I work."

"Right." It would have been a lie to say that she wasn't at least a little bit disappointed. While she had hardly expected a profession of undying love for her since the first moment he had laid eyes on her, a little affirmation would have been nice.

"But that's not to say you're not a beautiful, amazing girl." He looked sorry that he had said that last sentence now. "It's not that I wouldn't want you if we were in a different situation, but..."

"But we're not." Rachel finished for him.

"And besides, now we've seen how it worked out the first time, would you really want to try it again?"

Rachel bit her lip. The honest answer was a resounding no. Her and Will's far too brief relationship had been a disaster of Titanic proportions. Separately they might be wonderful, but together they were a disaster and it might be something that Rachel just had to accept and move on from.

"I'm sorry," she said for what felt like the hundredth time that day. "I'm sorry I expected so much from you. It was naive and idealistic."

She heard tentative footsteps and didn't turn to look as he came and sat down beside her. He was far away enough that it didn't feel like an invasion of privacy and she felt no urge to move away from him as she had earlier. In fact, what she wanted was to move closer. Not to attempt a reinstigation of anything, but simply because it felt like an eternity since she had felt human contact that way she wanted it. Just innocent and one dimensional.

"I'm sorry I couldn't live up to your expectations."

It was such a peculiar conversation to be having with one's Spanish teacher and Rachel couldn't help but be a little dumbstruck by his words. Will too seemed to realise what he had just said, as he frowned and his eyebrows pulled together quirkily.

"I didn't mean it like that," he said, and she could have heard the grin in his voice from a mile away.

Wordlessly, she shuffled a little awkwardly along the edge of the stage until she bumped into him, at which point she reached up her arms and wrapped them around his neck. He stiffened noticeably but Rachel ignored it, pressing her nose into his neck and closing her eyes to fully appreciate the feel of him.

It was strange to touch him again, after everything that had happened between them. Strange, but not wrong; just different, more meaningful.

"Rach..." She felt him begin to unwind her arms lightly and shook her head, her nose rubbing into his skin.

"Don't. Just let me hold on. Just for a minute."

Slowly his hands released her arms and they twisted around her back. She drank in the smell of his skin, all too aware that this was probably the last time she would ever be able to something of such a nature. He smelled just like she remembered; soapy and clean and familiar. It brought a strange sense of reality crashing down around her.

She had changed and he had changed, but nothing else had. He smelled the same, looked the same, spoke the same, he was to all intents and purposes the same, which meant so was she. To everyone else, she was just her, just as she ever was. It was one of the most grounding thoughts Rachel had ever had. The sense of detachment and the surreal quality of the moment died abruptly.

Rachel took one last deep breath and pulled away, dropping her arms and looking back at the floor.

"Thank you."

He didn't answer and the silence that seemed commonplace over the last couple of weeks returned but this time, it lacked the awkwardness of earlier. Once again, after the long pause it was Will who broke the silence.

"Why me? Why did you decide that it was me you wanted?"

"Because." She sighed a little sadly, looking down into her lap and thinking. "Because he hurt me and you were there to pick up the pieces and I suppose I thought – I suppose I thought that you were different. That you actually cared."

"I do." He looked down as well, because it was too hard to watch her face when it was this pained. "Don't ever think that I don't care about you."

"I know." She laughed forlornly. "Just not enough, right? And not like that."

"Rachel, it was a mistake, what we did."

"I know," she muttered. "I know it was, but I don't regret it. I only regret what it's done to us."

"It hasn't done anything to us. We're still the same people, just a little bit wiser, that's all. Everything's going to be alright."

"No it's not." She shook her head.

"_Yes_, it is." They were the same words from that day, unintentionally said by the same mouths that had uttered them in that time before the mistakes were made. It seemed they held a small magic, because with those words Rachel looked up and met Will's eyes, their gaze holding for a long time.

"Yes," She said finally, after a moment's thought and a beautifully tragic smile. "Yes, I suppose it is."

_But the search ends here_

_When the night is totally clear_

_So now you finally know, that you control where you go_

_You can steer_

_

* * *

_

_The End_


End file.
